A Very Merry Sweaty 30th - May 2018 PTR!

My name is Shantelle and I'm a Disney planning addict. Which is why I'm starting my very first PTR! Since I haven't done one of these before, please bear with me. If you have suggestions, let me know!

So...onto the cast of characters! All two of them.

First up: Me! I've been to WDW more times than I can count and can never get enough time there. I used to work on Main Street, miss it, but live out of state (for now - we plan on moving back). I don't work outside our home right now, but do some blogging, photography, and some general writing to keep busy.

Second: The husband, Andrew! He's only been going since 2012 and I was the one to take him! I tease him that our actual anniversary is the first day of that October trip, as if he hadn't at least liked it then we would probably not have lasted (we'd only been dating for a short while at that point, FYI). He's awesome at his job, and loves data analysis and Disney!

We've been DVC members since that first trip in 2012 (SSR + VGF) and APers since 2016!

We also have two pups but they're staying behind with a very nice house sitter. Which Ava will not be happy about

To finish the intros, here's a photo of my husband and I!

The reason for this trip: Disney, of course. But the real reason is I'm turning 30 on May 8th! And what better place to spend a special (or regular) birthday than at a Disney Park? We’ll be there May 5-12. I've done May in the parks a few times now, and I'm hoping that it'll be somewhat cool during our stay. Otherwise it will end up being a very sweaty trip

I've got a lot to plan, two big things are down though! Booking our DVC resort and flights, but I'll talk more about that in the next post.

Resort
As you might see from my signature, Andrew and I have been DVC members since 2012. We actually signed up on Andrew's first trip, just 4 months after we met! Of course, we were engaged from 3 months after we met, so I guess that extra month added a nice cushion to the fact that we'd stay together to use that membership

We own at both Saratoga Springs and Villas at Grand Floridian, because who can resist the charm of the Floridian?? Well, in order to book everything we were a few VGF points short, so we had to book the trip with the first night at SSR and the remaining days at VGF. I was SO worried that we wouldn't be able to get that full week at VGF because I was seriously hoping we could since we hadn't stayed there since our honeymoon back in 2014! Luckily at 7 months out I called RIGHT at 9AM and was able to get the night at SSR switched over - I was over the moon! So, with that oh so crazy drama (aka the bit of worrying I did for 4 months) we were booked for 7 nights at the Villas at Grand Floridian!

Flights
The flights for this trip might end up being my favorite part of the planning process, to be honest! I came up with a brilliantly evil plan to save us beaucoup cash on flying so we wouldn't have to drive down for the trip. We fly pretty much exclusively on Southwest and had recently taken a trip up to Michigan for Andrew's job. Which, conveniently gave us a not too shabby amount of points. Usually I don't think much about booking using points, but as I was pricing flights (and seeing how lame the pricing was) it popped in my head to check out our points. WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW Andrew had enough to cover the cost of BOTH of his flights. I had enough to knock down the price to $60, which was all I had to pay to get enough points to book in all points! In total we only paid $82 for all four flights and taxes! Once again, I was pretty over the moon at this since cheaper flights add more souvenir budget

And next up will be ADRs (since they've been booked for a while now, oops) and news of a surprise tagalong guest

So, personally, I'm a little into food. It's very important to me (obvs only me, no one else needs food or anything ). When I had started this PTR I'd already booked some reservations but, it being my birthday and all, I needed to make sure that everything would be awesome for the day -and week- of. Previously we had booked Lunch with an Imagineer since it seemed SO fun, but since it was going to be the day after my birthday and it would be SO expensive, we decided to cancel for a MUCH better opportunity:

CINDERELLA'S ROYAL TABLE!!!

I managed to find a reservation for the morning of my birthday BEFORE the park opened. OH YES. We haven't been there since our honeymoon and even though character dining is not my favorite, it's the experience of being in the castle, eating, on my birthday morning that makes it special. We had originally planned to just start the day with afternoon tea at the Grand, but this is SO MUCH BETTER. Here's the listing of ADRs as they (finally) stand:

Here are some of the switches:
-Originally we were going to do Tutto Italia for my birthday dinner, but we haven't been there before and the actual restaurant didn't look that thrilling (nor did the menu) so I decided to switch it out for Restaurant Marrakesh, one of my top 5 restaurants on property in my favorite EPCOT pavilion.
-We had planned on doing Grand Floridian Cafe for breakfast on the 10th, but thought about switching for Narcoossee's dinner because we've never been thrilled with GFC's breakfast. However, even though we waaaaant to go to Narcoossee's at some point, we just switched GFC to dinner. For as many TS as we're doing on this trip (and holy wow did CRT go up in price since we last went) we'll save it for next time when it's a more low-key trip.
-UM WE ARE NOW DOING CRT FOR MY BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST!! Sorry, had to add that twice.

I've already got our GardenGrocer order sitting in my cart, so that's ready to go once we can place/pay for the order. That way we'll have some snack/breakfast/dinner food items in the room when we don't want to go out.

QS is easy for us. We mostly make sure we stop at Satu'li Canteen, Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie, and Pecos Bill. Other than that we know wherever we end up will have amazing food!

Now that I'm sufficiently hungry, I'll sign off! I hope everyone is having a great week!